Mistakenly Mated (4 page)

Caleb grunted. He was far more but that would be hard to explain to a human.

“He was just going.”

Caleb adjusted his belt, settling himself and his expensive jacket. He didn’t like that he—her mate—was dismissed but he understood that she didn’t want an audience while she broke up with him.

“Yes,” he said, his voice only just managing to stay above a growl. “I’ll see you later.” Caleb strolled passed them, pushing his sunglasses back down over his eyes.

Kerry relaxed against Dick when Caleb was gone. She barely knew him but her body reacted to him like they were long time lovers. Her body had been on fire for him the minute he touched her and helpless to fight. She would have gotten off if he’d taken her right there against the stacks. It would have been risky, but worth it.

It wasn’t as if she’d never done anything like that before. She and Dick had sex in the bathroom at the IHOP out on the interstate when her teasing both over and under the breakfast table became too much for him. Kerry looked up at Dick and her heart hurt because of what she knew she had to do. So, when Dick smiled at her, so happy to see her, it made her feel worse than she already did.

“Your shift’s nearly over,” he said, showing how well he knew her. “Let’s go out for lunch.”

Chapter Four

Dick worried about Kerry as they sat across from each other at the food court in the mall. She’d been silent on the drive over too. She didn’t order as much as she usually did and sat picking at her food, like she wasn’t hungry. Kerry always had a healthy appetite so he knew there must be something wrong. What was the right way to approach it?

“Is something bothering you?” he asked, reaching out to take her hand but she pulled it off the table out of his reach. His brows pulled together. She was avoiding personal contact in the same way she had hugged him rather than kissed him when she greeted him. She stared at her hands, the final clue of something she was putting off telling him, some piece of news she wasn’t sure how he would take.

“Just say it. Whatever it is, just say it.”

“I want to break up,” she blurted out.

Dick fell back against his chair, unable to keep the shock off his face. Of all the things he could imagine, that was not one of them. They had only seen each other yesterday so what could have changed in a day?

“Why?” It was all he could think of to ask as he stared at her.

Kerry wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her arms like she was cold. She wouldn’t look at him and bit her lip, unable to answer him.

Dick felt hurt. “If you can’t look at me and tell me why, then I am not going to sit here and accept that.”

Kerry raised her face to look at him and she was crying. Tears hadn’t fallen yet but they were there in her eyes.

“I just want to break up,” she said but her words were strangled like she really didn’t want to say them.

Dick smacked his hands on the table and stared her down. She jumped a little like he’d hit her not the table.

“I don’t believe you.” He watched her face. “Does this have something to do with that guy?”

Kerry dropped her eyes. “No,” she barked defensively.

Dick scanned the tables around them to see who listened to their conversation. He stood up, walking around to her side of the table. He wrapped his fingers around her wrists ,pulling her to her feet.

Kerry didn’t fight his grip. She just followed along behind him as they left the food court for someplace quiet to talk. He dragged her down the corridor leading to the bathrooms and backed her up against the wall.

“What is going on?” he demanded a proper answer from her.

“Please Richard.”

“Don’t you dare,” he said, stepping closer to her so she could feel his hot breath on her skin.

She looked at him as if he were the one breaking up with her, her heart breaking.

“Don’t put distance between us by calling me that. You know my name.”

“Please, I can’t explain. Please don’t,” she begged him but he had a head of steam on now and was not going to let it go.

“Say my name,” he growled, advancing on her.

She pressed her back right up against the wall, flattening herself to it like it would ground her. “Richard,” she said softly.

He gripped her arms tightly and brought them nose to nose. “Kerry,” he made her name a warning.

Kerry shivered under his touch and swallowed forcibly. “Dick.”

He wrapped his hand into the back of her hair, gripping it tight and making her gasp. He planted a fierce kiss on her mouth, demanding her compliance. Kerry wrapped her arms around him after a few seconds, holding him close. Dick pressed against her, holding her to the wall with a new hardened part of his anatomy. He broke the kiss, smiling triumphantly into her face.

“You still want me. You can’t pretend that you don’t.”

Kerry knew she shouldn’t be kissing another man but it wasn’t just any man, it was Dick. Mating dance or not, mate or not, the ceremony couldn’t overwhelm her heart. It couldn’t erase her memories of the time they spent together—the days just hanging out and the nights curled around each other’s bodies in passion. Her want, her need for Caleb was something primal, something that affected her body but not her mind. Caleb hadn’t attempted any kind of romance yet.

Dick laced his fingers through her hair, drawing her into the men’s room with him. It was luckily empty as he pulled her into one of the cubicles.

“What are we doing in here?” she asked in a very quiet voice.

Dick flashed her his naughtiest smile, dropping slowly down her body to his knees. “You know exactly what we’re doing in here.”

“No, no, no,” she protested half-heartedly.

Dick already had his hands under her skirt and yanked her panties down her hips. He got them off over her feet and tucked them into his pocket for later.

Kerry looked down at him, her breath heavy. She was about to protest again when the door to the men’s room swung open again. Two men came in, chatting away with each other about how hot this summer was and that they should get the other people in their church group to organize a pot luck barbeque.

While Kerry was distracted by the sound of their voices, Dick parted her thighs and buried his face between them. Kerry bit her lip to keep from gasping. She didn’t want to be caught engaging in something like this in the men’s room.

She turned mad eyes down on Dick. His were twinkling with mischief as he lifted her one leg over his shoulder and reminded her what he could do with his tongue. Breathily she fell heavy against the partition, making it rattle and the two men stopped their conversation momentarily at the noise.

She had to put her hand over her mouth when Dick ran his tongue greedily around her clit but the men finished their business and their conversation slowly drowned out to nothing as they left the bathroom behind.

Dick’s fingers squeezed her buttocks. Kerry cried out her orgasm, quaking and sobbing softly. He smiled up at her.

“Keep it down,” he chided her. “Your noises that got us banned from that IHOP.”

Kerry growled, her tone almost wolfish in warning but Dick ignored it. He’d seen Kerry at her worst and he always knew exactly how to escape her wrath. In this case, it was to take her by surprise. He used his arms under her calves to lift her up the wall, pressing his body between her legs and rubbing the bulge in his shorts against her sensitive flesh. For the first time,Kerry didn’t react the way he expected. Instead of the lusty moan the gesture usually warranted from her, her eyes filled with panic and she struggled.

Kerry tossed her head from side to side, trying to get out of his grip. In her head she was screaming, the words from her mother’s book coming back to her.
Copulation with another must not occur. Must not occur. Must not!

She pushed at Dick, trying to get back onto her feet, to get purchase to fight him off or run away but do something. She wasn’t supposed to have sex with anyone but her mate. Dick put her down and stepped back from her as far as the cubicle would allow him to. Kerry bent over, breathing hard from her exertion.

“You really didn’t want me to,” he said. His voice sounded really shocked and hurt. Kerry couldn’t look at him. “ I wasn’t going to force you.”

“Then you should have let me go the first time I asked you to,” she snapped, trying to hide behind anger. Anger was her safest emotion right now, as a nagging part of her brain wanted to have Dick inside her one last time.

“What’s going on?” he asked shaky.

“I told you. I want to break up.”

“You really mean that?”

His voice cut through her like a knife. It hurt to hear the pain in his voice. It broke her heart to have to stand there and break his.

“I wouldn’t have said it, if I didn’t mean it.”

Dick was silent.

Kerry managed to raise her head enough so she could see the latch holding the stall door closed and she worked it loose. “I’m sorry Dick, but it’s over.”

Kerry pushed open the door, running out as fast as she could. She yanked her skirt back into place and escaped into the crowd of mall shoppers before Dick composed himself enough to stop her.

She kept running until she came to the nearest exit and got out of the building. The heat hit her like a hammer—compared to the air conditioned inside it was like stepping from a fridge into an oven. It made her stop for a minute, feeling weary all over. A large woman pushing a baby buggy bumped her, sending Kerry spinning into the news dispenser next to the door. Without giving her a backwards glance, the woman went on with her day.

Kerry straightened herself up, the little jolt of pain to her side was all the permission she needed to burst into tears. Several people turned to look at her but she just slid along the wall of the building, ignoring them until she turned the corner into the service alley out of their sight. She crouched down and let herself bawl for a little while. She let her emotions flow out of her.

In time she would forget about Dick and how much he meant to her, how much she cared for him and still did. Part of her wanted to go right back inside to him or to find his car and wait, to apologize and tell him she hadn’t meant it but she had. It was over now—whatever it could have been. Her body yearned for Caleb.

Kerry moved away from the mouth of the alley to crouch behind the dumpster. Dick drove them out there so she would have to make her own way home. She took a Wal-Mart bag from her back pocket that she kept for emergencies and shucked her shoes.

She peered around her to make sure she was alone before stripping off every last stitch and putting it into the bag. She crouched down and let her other form take over. Her bones broke and reformed, the pain was small after many years of doing it. Her face went numb as it elongated into a wolves muzzle. Her eyes sharpened, her nose became keener, her teeth became fangs. Her tail curled up from her spine and it was like the fur rose up from inside her skin. It always felt like the process was done in stages, in slow motion when it only took a couple of seconds. A fur coat in a summer this hot wasn’t the best idea but she could cover much more ground in a faster time as a wolf.

Kerry shook out her coat and panted for a while adjusting to the heat before taking the handles of the carrier bag between her teeth and heading for home.

* * * *

Kerry trotted into the yard at about four o’clock. The car was still gone which meant her father was still at work and it should be just her mother in the house. Kerry slunk around to the back door and in through the large doggie door in the back wall of the house. Kerry’s mother was washing dishes in the sink with her back to the little door when Kerry came in. She skirted around the kitchen island to stay out of her sight and off to the side into the little wash room. Standing on her hind legs she deposited her bag of dirty clothes into the basket on top which contained other dirty laundry to be washed.

Kerry pressed her snout around the door jamb and peered into the kitchen to see what her mother was doing. Her hands were still in the soapy water and she was looking out the window into the woods at the side of the house. Kerry darted out to behind the island, making careful steps to the other side and preparing herself to dart for the kitchen door.

“Kerry Ann Bradley. Do you think I can’t see you? You come out from behind there, young lady.”

Kerry whimpered and, bowing her head, stalked out from behind the island. Her mother stood with her hands on her hips, suds dripping from her fingers, and tapping her foot.

“What are you doing sneaking into the house like that? It’s the middle of the day. What if someone saw you? You know better.”

Kerry sat on her haunches and crossed her paws over her nose, whimpering sadly.

Her mother tilted her head and her expression softened. “I take it something happened. What’s wrong, baby girl?”

Kerry just whimpered, lying down on the ground and putting her paws over her ears. Her mother bent down in front of her and patted her head.

“You talked to Dick I take it. I’m sorry honey, really I am. I liked the boy but this is the way of our people. Go on up and take a shower. We’ll talk when you come down.”